


Like It Didn't Matter

by hearmerory



Series: Change of Address [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang wants them to kiss and there will be no stopping them, Ableism, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autism, Autistic Zuko (Avatar), Gay Zuko (Avatar), Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Past Child Abuse, Sokka finds out about Zuko's scar, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko's Childhood (Avatar), Zuko's Scar (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26570587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearmerory/pseuds/hearmerory
Summary: There was a lot that he planned on never, ever telling Sokka. But a part of him, a growing, traitorous part that whispered in his own voice rather than his father’s, desperately wanted to share some of it.So when Sokka asked, firmly but so, so gently, if he wanted to talk about the scar, he said yes.
Relationships: Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Change of Address [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928572
Comments: 49
Kudos: 1176





	Like It Didn't Matter

Sokka was pretty.

There was nothing Zuko could do about it, now that he’d noticed.

He was pretty at lunch in the school cafeteria.

He was pretty from the bleachers as he ran around playing whatever sport he was supposed to be playing that day.

He was pretty in Uncle’s tea shop as he sipped on pink hibiscus tea topped with crazy quantities of sugar.

He was pretty in the driver’s seat of his beat up car as he drove Zuko to random places in town he’d never had the chance to see.

He was especially pretty with his arm around Zuko’s shoulders, providing perfect pressure depending on the mood. Firm and solid through panic, clenching during excitement, soft when exhaustion hit him.

He was just... really fucking pretty.

And Zuko was so, so fucked.

He’d been hanging out with Sokka and his friends for almost the whole school year, ever since they’d dragged him over to play board games with them.

Slowly, gently, they’d surrounded him until he couldn’t even pretend they weren’t friends.

He’d never had friends before, and it was overwhelming, a perfect, anxiety inducing, wonderful, terrifying, messy experience.

He didn’t think even Azula had had this kind of easy friendship.

Toph had quickly nabbed him as some kind of pseudo sibling, and teased him constantly about the fact that only being able to see properly out of one eye hadn’t given him the same level of near miraculous use of his other senses as being completely blind had given her.

Katara fussed over him, not quite knowing how best to dole out her particular brand of motherly caring, when he so openly rejected being cared for.

Aang just noticed how he looked at Sokka, and how Sokka looked at him, and nudged them in appropriate directions. Sometimes vocally, and usually very, very clearly, because both of them were dense about it.

But Sokka was the bright light of the group. He kept them entertained, kept them busy. Kept Zuko from spiraling.

He was smart, and kind, and he cared.

Which meant it wasn’t long before he started asking questions.

Like why Zuko flinched at raised hands and loud noises.

Or why he never spoke to his father or sister.

Or why he lived with Uncle.

Or why he got so tired after long days, or when they were sparring together in the gym.

Or how he’d got the scar that disfigured half of his face.

He asked questions carefully and gently, and Zuko couldn’t help wanting to answer. He’d never spoken to anyone about any of it, apart from Uncle.

And Uncle only knew so much.

There was a lot that he planned on never, ever telling Sokka. But a part of him, a growing, traitorous part that whispered in his own voice rather than his father’s, desperately wanted to share some of it.

So when Sokka asked, firmly but so, so gently, if he wanted to talk about the scar, he said yes.

They’d been driving back from school to hang out at Sokka’s house before his grandmother came back from visiting her boyfriend.

Zuko’s agreement started a long silence as they finished the drive, Sokka’s spare hand clutched over Zuko’s.

Sokka’s eyes stayed firmly on the road, and Zuko rested his head against the car window, absorbing vibrations through his forehead and allowing his free hand to tap quickly at his thigh.

Zuko had never shared a silence as long as that with Sokka. It lasted all the way until they’d sat down on Sokka’s bed, in his room decorated with posters of glaciers and his boomerang collection.

Sokka sat next to him on the blue bed spread, and waited.

Zuko didn’t know where to start.

He’d wanted to let Sokka in. Wanted to share that part of himself, the gaping wound that had never quite healed, even with Uncle’s first aid of tea, affirmation and hugs.

But it was harder than he’d expected, knowing how to start.

He thought through it. There was no way he could just launch into a description of the heat, the way his skin had bubbled and torn under the scorch, the way his Father’s eyes had bored into him as he screamed.

He... he had to justify it. Had to give context, had to make it clear that it had been his father’s last resort. He wasn’t sure he even thought that, anymore. But he had. He’d believed it with his entire being, his entire life.

So he started there.

“Father didn’t like that I was different,” he broke the silence, and Sokka jumped a little, turning to face Zuko more fully on the edge of the bed. “My whole childhood, he wanted me to get better. To be more normal. To act like he thought his son should act. Azula was always so much better at it than me. She could make people fear her instantly, or make them laugh, or get them to do things for her. I couldn’t do any of it.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to anyway,” Sokka frowned, “you’re like... a decent human being.”

“You don’t get it,” Zuko shook his head. “I just... I was always fucking up. Every time I opened my damned mouth, I’d say something stupid, or disrespectful, or freaky. I couldn’t do anything right. I’d mess up at school, I’d make weird fluttery movements at the dinner table. I’d act like an idiot at functions, and I’d freak out if there were too many people, or if it was too loud or too bright. I was an embarrassment. It didn’t matter how many tutors I had, or how many doctors he took me to, or how many times he tried to teach me, I just didn’t _learn_.”

“Spirits Zuko... that’s... none of that is your fault...” Sokka sank a little on the bed, trying not to think of Zuko’s father hating him for all the little awkwardnesses that made him so endearing.

“I know that now,” Zuko growled a little. Sokka’s heart shattered a little at that ‘now’. The idea that there had been a time, not even that long ago, where the boy in front of him had believed all that bullshit...

“There was a party,” Zuko sighed, running a hand through his shaggy hair and scratching behind his good ear. “I wasn’t supposed to go, really, I was... grounded,” he didn’t mention the bruised ribs he’d been nursing from his father’s version of grounding, “but Uncle said I should attend. Apparently Father was trying to encourage one of his colleagues to push his daughter to date me.”

“Wait, weren’t you like, thirteen?” Sokka tried very hard not to squeak.

“Father wished us to be prepared,” Zuko said flatly, and Sokka didn’t even have a moment to dissect that before the story continued and he was struggling to breathe with the tension, knowing that it ended with the kid next to him turning out... like he was. “The party was... excruciating. Everyone was touching me, and talking to me, and I had to shake their hands and look at their eyes and I didn’t _understand_ , and I wasn’t allowed to make noise or tap or do _anything_ , because we were in _public_ and it was _embarrassing_.”

Zuko paused for a second, regathering his breath as he tapped his fingers wildly against his thigh.

“And then the girl hugged me, and it was suffocating and I couldn’t breathe. Azula whistled at us and laughed, and she said we were going to get married. The girl wouldn’t let go and I... I just... switched off. I yelled at Azula that I wasn’t going to marry Mai because she wasn’t a boy, and people started laughing, and yelling, and Father grabbed my arm too tight. The music was too loud, and the lights were weird, and I’d had to wear stupid fancy clothes, and everything was so fucking uncomfortable I couldn’t even breathe. Then I started freaking out. Azula says it was loud, that I wouldn’t stop slapping my head, that I kept making these inhuman shrieking noises and just curled up on the ground, rocking like a lunatic.”

“Shit,” Sokka whispered. That sounded like a full on meltdown. And a public coming out story in front of his homophobic father and all his father’s friends.

“He dragged me out,” Zuko’s leg bounced uncontrollably on the floor. “And took us home.”

Sokka couldn’t breathe.

“I screamed all the way back, Azula says. Smashing my head against the car window. Father tried to hold me down but it made everything worse. He shouted louder, and I screamed more, and then he punched me, really hard in the nose. I couldn’t breathe enough to scream anymore, but I spurted blood all over his suit and his car,” he let a tiny note of pride into his voice, and Sokka rejoiced, because anything that gave Zuko an ounce of positivity in this story was good in his book.

Zuko went quiet again, almost unwilling to continue. But he’d made his choice.

“We got home,” he whispered into the silence, “and he dragged me in by the collar. I should have known something was going to happen. I should have known.”

“You couldn’t have known anything,” Sokka didn’t dare wrap his fingers around the long hand still tapping at Zuko’s thigh.

“He was screaming at me, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and then he was hitting me for not listening, for disrespecting him, for embarrassing him. I was just huddled on the floor, and I was _trying_ , but I couldn’t talk properly. I just kept apologizing. I told him I didn’t mean to disrespect him, that I was sorry. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t _stop_.”

There was a long moment of quiet, where Sokka barely breathed.

“And then he plugged in an iron.” Zuko said it almost as though it was irrelevant to the story. Sokka froze.

“Tui and La,” he whispered under his breath.

“Azula says I was practically catatonic by that point. But I... I remember. He... he held me up and still by my hair. He made me look him in the eye again, and I could barely see I was crying so hard. He told me... he told me I would learn respect, and that suffering would be my teacher. And then he pressed the iron over my face and held it there.”

“Spirits...” Sokka breathed, horrified.

“He dumped me in a park. Azula left me a little flip phone with Uncle’s number programmed in. When I woke up it was nearly morning, and I’d been lying face down in the dirt for hours. Uncle took me to the hospital.”

“Did it... get infected?” Sokka tried to quell the rising horror in his chest. His father just threw him out? Right after burning off half his face?

“They managed to save the eye,” Zuko nodded, “but I had sepsis pretty bad.”

“I can’t believe he did that to you,” Sokka put his head in his hands, trying desperately not to cry.

“I... I really thought I deserved it,” he whispered, running his hand through his hair again as Sokka made a wounded noise, “I was awkward, and embarrassing, and I behaved badly. I was disrespectful to the party hosts, and to Mai and her father, and to Father. What kind of thirteen year old has a tantrum like that? Especially in public. It was rude, and obnoxious.”

Sokka squeezed his hands into fists, desperate to hug him, knowing it wouldn’t help in the moment. How dare his father make him think all of that? How dare they make him so used to such painfully derogatory language that he willingly described himself as a lunatic? As an embarrassment? How dare they mock him and beat him and _burn_ him for something so completely not his fault?

“Zuko, dude, if he’d accepted and supported you from the beginning, you would have had help. You’d have had coping strategies. Maybe he wouldn’t even have forced you to go to a loud, bright, touchy party. It’s not your fault he didn’t give you what you needed.”

“I... I know that now,” he sighed, “Uncle has been very insistent.”

That got a small chuckle out of both boys.

“You’ve lived with him since then?”

“Oh, um...” Zuko moved his hand to the back of his neck and scratched. “Not... not quite?”

“What do you mean?” Sokka’s trepidation levels spiked dramatically.

“Father called me, the first day I woke up properly from the burn. He... he said I wasn’t allowed back to the house until I was normal.”

“Normal?”

“Until I behaved like a neurotypical kid,” he sighed. Sokka felt his stomach drop again.

“But that’s... that’s not gonna happen, buddy,” he said gently.

“I tried,” Zuko confessed, “I tried really, really hard. I read books on human behavior, and watched kids at school. I practiced in the mirror. Eye contact, hands still, facial expressions, tone of voice. I learned conversation scripts. I learned jokes. I tried.”

“Zuko...” Sokka breathed. It was heartbreaking. He couldn’t look at the tears welling up in Zuko’s good eye.

“I thought... I thought he was giving me a chance. That he didn’t want me because I was... broken, but he’d want me if I fixed it. I wanted to be able to fix it, Sokka. I wanted to go _home_.” His voice hitched and he fisted his hands in Sokka’s sheets.

“There is _nothing_ about you that needs fixing,” Sokka clenched his teeth together to stop himself from screaming at the injustice of it all.

“I... I thought it had to be possible. It had to be that I just wasn’t trying hard enough, that I wasn’t good enough. I wanted to believe he hadn’t set me some impossible task and then thrown me away. I... I wanted to be able to... to earn him back.”

“That was cruel, Zuko. Fucking mean-hearted and _nasty_. But... you went back?”

“Three years after he threw me out, when I was sixteen, I... I got a perfect report card. This was the end of sophomore year. Azula cornered me after school and made me show her. She said that Father would take me back if I showed him. She said he’d love me.”

Sokka couldn’t even breathe. Couldn’t bear to hear the crack in Zuko’s voice.

“Azula always lies,” he whispered, like a childhood mantra. “He took me back. But it was worse than before. At Uncle’s, I had routines. I had escape routes for being overwhelmed. He never shouted, or made me do things I didn’t want to do, or hit me when I fucked up. Father... I think he was testing me. He’d make me have impossibly long conversations, and whack me whenever I looked away. He’d play loud music in my room, and sometimes he’d just come in and flick the light on and off over and over, just to see what I’d do. He’d come in the middle of the night and wake me up yelling at me. He’d make me skip meals. I was tired and hungry _all_ the time. He bought me all new clothes and didn’t let me cut off the labels or use fabric softener, and nothing felt right or smelled right. He kept sneaking up in my blind spot and grabbing me when I wasn’t expecting it, and whacking me if I flinched. He’d yell for hours, right in my ear, and he kept touching the scar. Like... like he was proud of it.”

“Spirits,” Sokka moaned. His stomach hurt. It was torture. It was _sick_.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” Zuko’s breath hitched, “I couldn’t be normal for him. I couldn’t do it. I lasted six months, and then I snapped. Had the worst meltdown I’d had since he burned me. I barely even remember it. When I came... back online, after, I was in the bath. The water was cold, and I was... I was really beat up. The water was red, all around me. Azula was sitting on the floor next to the tub, waiting for me to wake up.”

“Fucking hell.”

“She just... smirked at me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something _off_ about her. Her hair was all rough, like she’d cut it herself, and her make up was all smudged, and she was... talking to someone who wasn’t me. Arguing with them. She kept saying ‘I have to hurt him, there’s no other way’. I just froze. I should have got out of the tub, I should have done something, but I couldn’t. It was like I wasn’t even in my body anymore.”

“You disassociated?”

Zuko shrugged.

“I... I don’t know where she got it,” his voice dropped again. “She stood up, really slowly, and just... towered over me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. She was grinning, like Father, but crazier, and she pulled a taser out of her pocket.”

“A taser?” Sokka yelped.

“She fired it right at my chest, and shocked me.”

“Fuck...”

“You’re only supposed to shock once or twice, but she just kept going. I... all my muscles just went haywire, and... I felt my heart stop.”

“Tui and La,” Sokka exhaled, gripping his fists into the sheets in a desperate attempt not to grab the other boy and hug him to death.

“Apparently she did CPR until the ambulance came. She saved my life. I don’t... I don’t think she really meant to kill me.”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it,” Sokka gritted his teeth to moderate his tone. He wanted to _scream_.

“Father came to see me in hospital. I... I told him I never wanted to see him again. He just stood there and _looked_ at me, for ages. And then he talked. He said all this... horrible stuff. About how mom left because she couldn’t deal with me. About how he’d tried so hard to help me be a real human being, but I was too... too much of an _animal_ to be helped. How I was stupid and pathetic and worthless, and he wished Azula had finished the job. How he wished he’d burned out both my eyes, so he wouldn’t have to look at me. How he wished he’d killed me instead of dumping me in that park and letting Uncle make me soft. How he hoped I’d finally got the message that no one wanted me, that no one could ever... love me like a real person. He told me I should kill myself, and put everyone else out of their misery.”

“Shit,” Sokka wheezed. He couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Anything to counteract the horror of having your father spew that at you while you lay in a hospital bed.

“Uncle took me back, even though I’d betrayed his kindness by going back to Father. He’d kept my room just the same. He hadn’t even thrown out my stuff.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Sokka wanted desperately to rest his head against Zuko’s shoulder, but held himself back, “why did you think he would?”

“Father did,” Zuko shrugged, “I came back and my old bedroom had been turned another training room for Azula. He gave me a different room, but all my stuff was gone. I didn’t even... the first two weeks I didn’t have a bed.”

“Bastard,” Sokka spat, unable to imagine the cruelty of living in a house that expensive and not providing your only son with a bed.

“I haven’t spoken to him since. Azula lives in a facility. Father couldn’t cope with her. So now he has two fucked up kids.”

“I’m really glad you had your Uncle.”

“Me too,” Zuko wiped his good eye with the back of his hand.

“And I’m really glad I have you,” Sokka finally reached for the hand that’d stilled against Zuko’s thigh, and squeezed with the exact right pressure.

“Me too,” his voice cracked.

They sat in silence for a moment, and Zuko squeezed his hand back, grounding himself in the supportive pressure.

“It’s why I don’t do higher level competitions,” he broke the silence. “I’d got used to training and sparring with the depth perception and balance issues. I even had a pretty good system going to cover my blind spots. But my heart’s kind of shot now, from the electricity.”

Sokka dropped his head onto Zuko’s shoulder, unable to resist any longer. He was talented. He could have gone a long way. And they ripped it from him, like everything else.

“I... I hate them, Zuko. I really hate them.”

“Don’t,” Zuko shook his head. Sokka tried to protest, but Zuko cut him off, “Azula was fourteen, and she was having a psychotic break. Her childhood was shitty too, Sokka. She had to be perfect, all the time, and perfect meant cruel, and cold, even though that wasn’t really who she was. She doesn’t deserve to have us hate her.”

“She tried to _kill_ you.”

“She didn’t let me die. And she gave me that cell phone, when Father dumped me. She was only eleven then. She wanted me to get help.”

“You deserved more,” Sokka tried one last time.

“So did she,” Zuko shrugged. There wasn’t much Sokka could say to that.

“Fine, I guess we can try not to hate Azula. But why on earth would you not hate your father? He... he really fucked you both over, man. That’s all kinds of neglect and abuse and just... it’s just evil. He fucking _terrorized_ you, for years.”

“It was cruel,” Zuko whispered, in the same tone he’d insisted that Azula always lies, “and it was wrong. He made our lives miserable. He... he ruined everything. I was so _fucking_ scared of him, all the time. But... I can’t hate him. I spent... so long trying to please him, and then so long being angry. My whole _life_ has been all about _him_ , and I don’t want it to be. He doesn’t deserve even that much from me anymore.”

Sokka couldn’t argue with that either, and a warm feeling spread over his body.

“I’m so proud of you, Zuko.” Zuko’s head snapped up to look incredulously at him. “I am. He did some horrible stuff, and you survived all of it. You’re making yourself a real life. If it’d been me, I don’t think I’d have coped half as well. You’re so strong, man.”

Zuko stared at him, confusion pressing at the front of his head. His father’s voice, insisting on his weakness, quietened slightly as he looked right into Sokka’s eyes, trying to see the lie.

He couldn’t find one.

“Why are you so nice to me?” He didn’t mean to say it. He certainly didn’t mean for it to come out in such a broken, whiny, childish voice. He dropped his head into his hands, desperate to take it back, trying so fucking hard not to cry. He felt empty, and too full, and his stomach ached. Why couldn’t he just accept Sokka not being a jerk? Why did he have to overthink it, every time?

The immediate remembered stench of burning skin and the pain of phantom fists answered that.

“You deserve someone being nice to you, Zuko. You deserve so fucking much I can’t even tell you.”

“I—I _don’t_ ,” he whispered. He didn’t miss the sudden tensing of Sokka’s muscles, or the firmer grip on his shoulder. He tensed his own body, ready to respond if Sokka attacked.

“Look at me,” Sokka said quietly. Zuko flinched. “Shit. I didn’t mean that. You don’t have to look at me, okay? You can look wherever you want. But listen?”

Zuko nodded. He dragged his eyes to Sokka’s and held them there. If Sokka wanted him to look, he’d look.

“Zuko... your dad is a total psycho. He should never have done any of that shit to you. You did not deserve it. You should have had parents who loved you, unconditionally. Who got you help when you needed it, and accepted the parts of you that are just always going to be there. You deserved to have a childhood where you were safe, and happy. You deserved so much better. But we can’t change that. All we can do is go forward. Right now, you need people around who love you, who accept you. I’m being nice to you because I want to be, and because I like you, and because it’s the right fucking thing to do.”

Zuko flopped forward and rested his head on Sokka’s chest, unable to keep up the eye contact any longer. Sokka wrapped his arms around Zuko’s shoulders, pulling him close and holding him tight.

“Aang says you wanna kiss me,” Zuko whispered into Sokka’s shirt. He heard the other boy’s heart beat faster.

“Aang’s a little shit for telling you that,” he whispered back.

“He said I’d never have worked it out on my own, and that you needed a push.”

“He’s a smart little shit.”

“He’s right?”

“Aang’s always right, you know that.”

“Oh.”

“Do you wanna kiss me?” Sokka held his breath.

“Conceptually, yes,” Zuko said immediately, nuzzling closer into Sokka’s chest.

“I conceptually wanna kiss you too,” Sokka pressed a tiny kiss on the top of Zuko’s hair, overwhelming fondness rushing through him.

“Good,” Zuko’s body sagged even further against him, and Sokka gripped him a little tighter.

“How do we turn conceptually into real life?” Sokka moved a hand up and cradled the back of Zuko’s head, running fingers through the shockingly soft strands.

Zuko shook his head a little.

“I feel like shit,” he whispered. “My head hurts, and my eyes hurt, and my skin hurts. I wanna go home, and sleep in my bed.”

Sokka’s heart sank a little, the rejection stinging. It was his fault Zuko felt bad. He’d made the other boy spill some of his darkest moments, and dropped the bomb of his crush on him immediately after. Of course he wouldn’t want to kiss. Of course he wouldn’t feel the same way.

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “That sounds like a good plan. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything.”

“Okay,” Zuko sagged impossibly further into Sokka. “We’re both free third period tomorrow. Or after my shift tomorrow evening.”

Sokka’s brain short circuited for a moment.

“Are you saying you want to kiss in third period?” Sokka breathed. Zuko pulled back for a moment to take in Sokka’s stunned expression.

“Or after my shift tomorrow evening,” he repeated, frowning a little. Had he not been clear?

“Ah. Right. Okay. Excellent.” Sokka stammered, hope and warmth rekindling in his chest. “I think we can manage that.”

**Author's Note:**

> SunflowerSideUp made this super cool animatic for this story. I love fan art!  
> [Check it out!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oHe6dzLGw&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=SunflowerSideUp)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [we burn alive (to keep warm)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26810140) by [Oceantail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceantail/pseuds/Oceantail)




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